


Onlookers

by Shaitanah



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaitanah/pseuds/Shaitanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living with Sherlock is like being a constant victim of a Halloween prank. [outsiders’ POV… sort of; spoilers for all aired episodes]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Onlookers

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and the BBC.  
> A/N: for the prompt “domestic bliss” by transient-words. It turned out to be somewhat experimental and just plain weird.

Living with Sherlock is like being a constant victim of the infamous Halloween prank where your mates ask you to close your eyes and shove your hand into a bowl of cold noodles, telling you it’s human entrails. Except with Sherlock, it could really be human entrails.

 

The eyes are watching from the microwave. There’s not an inch of room in the jar, but they like it this way. The rest of the microwave is theirs, save for an occasional sandwich or a plate of convenience foods. Those tongues in Tupperware in the fridge have it much worse.

 

The eyes see John open the fridge and take out a jar full of thick, dark red fluid.

 

“Is this blood?” John asks in a perfectly level voice. He’s a doctor, he’s seen worse, but the eyes can tell he is not pleased.

 

“Is it?” Sherlock parries. Sherlock is too busy updating his website to engage in this discussion.

 

“You’re like a Satan worshipper, you know that?”

 

Sherlock stands up and snatches the jar away from him. He unscrews the lid, sniffs at the contents, brings the jar up to his mouth and slurps some of the red substance. John shuts his eyes briefly, looking properly sick.

 

“Cranberry sauce,” Sherlock declares, and loses interest instantly.

 

“Could you maybe label them or something?”

 

Maybe is the incorrect phrasing. Sherlock doesn’t do maybe. But the tongues and the feet and the eyes later get neat, tiny stickers on their containers. The eyes in the microwave take it as a sign that John’s eyes will not be joining them any time soon.

 

\--

 

There is a ghost in the Mind Palace. It glides through the vast halls, disrupting the buffering process. Something like that lived there long ago when Sherlock enjoyed experimenting on himself and dosed himself up with all sorts of illegal substances, that is why the things Sherlock catalogued back then are grainy, tainted, inverted.

 

The Mind Palace tries to drive the ghost out.

 

“John? John? John?” Sherlock incants without looking up from the crucible.

 

“Tell me you haven’t been repeating my name for a solid hour while I was very obviously _not here_.”

 

“You were? Where were you?”

 

“At Mrs Turner’s. She asked for a doctor. Back ache.”

 

“Rat,” says Sherlock.

 

John blinks and tells him it’s rude to call an old lady a rat even if she does look a little like a rodent.

 

“What are you talking about? Get me a rat.”

 

“I don’t have a rat,” John says earnestly. As far as Sherlock’s requests go, this is not the worst, but – what? Seriously, what?

 

“From the pet shop around the corner,” Sherlock explains. “Go on. I need to test a poison.”

 

John rolls his eyes and stomps down the stairs with the look of a genuine martyr on his face.

 

Later, when John is no longer around, when Sherlock himself is just a story in the newspapers, the ghost revisits the Mind Palace. It distorts the clear, cold memories stored in the Everyday wing, colouring them with a mournful tint of grey.

 

The ghost’s name is Sentiment.

 

\--

 

The blood-red apple with letters carved into its side misses its fairytale. It has the inherent knowledge that most red apples possess: it was meant for more than a madman’s knife. It was meant for a princess’s ruby lips and pearl-white teeth, it was meant to put her in deep sleep that only a kiss can cure. Instead, it had a chunk bitten out of it and the white gap in the red peel is slowly turning brown.

 

John picks up the apple and examines it with vague distaste.

 

“That’s an interesting IOU,” he notes. Something bubbles underneath that deceptively calm exterior. Sherlock pretends not to see it. “How long till he’s coming after you?”

 

The apple feels dry and incomplete, but the strain in John’s voice gives it hope that it could still be poisonous.

 

“Could be years,” says Sherlock. “Could be tomorrow. We’re out of tea by the way.”

 

“One of these days you will have to go shopping,” John huffs. “By yourself.”

 

\--

 

Drugs are hiding in the secret places, undiscovered by the police or by John. Sherlock knows where they are of course. They bide their time, waiting for him to come and let them play with his brain.

 

Cigarettes are tucked safely under the skull. For some reason, it never crosses Sherlock’s brilliant mind to look there.

 

At times like these, living with Sherlock is like taking a walk during an air raid.

 

\--

 

The violin is moaning plaintively as the bow tortures the strings unimaginatively, back and forth with poorly calculated force. John’s sleepy face looms in the doorway.

 

“Who are you torturing to death here?”

 

“I thought music didn’t bother you,” Sherlock says calmly without bothering to interrupt his activities. “It aids my thought process.”

 

“Music doesn’t bother me,” John points out. “ _This_ is not music. This is the sound of a very sick animal dying slowly and in great agony at three in the morning. As a doctor, I can’t stand it.”

 

“Animal, yes,” Sherlock draws out. “Call Lestrade. We find the victim’s dog, we find the murderer.”

 

The violin is proud of itself. It helps to solve crimes.

 

John gives Sherlock a blank stare. Sherlock sighs, one step away from accusing John of doing it on purpose, and begins to explain:

 

“The dog’s collar, John. Honestly, how much more obvious does it have to get before you all can see it?”

 

\--

 

Old newspapers accumulate like autumn leaves and gather dust all over the room. Sherlock never bothered to get rid of his artistic mess, claiming that it helped him to think. John doesn’t care enough to tidy up, not now.

 

There is a pack of unused nicotine patches lost between the papers. There are bullet holes in the walls; John remembers how they were made. There is a crust of mouldy bread that is something like a year old lying on the floor in the corner of the living-room. Sherlock’s violin resting in its closed case. Chemicals next to a plastic bag of human toes.

 

Living without Sherlock is like not living at all.

 

Slowly, John uproots himself from the arm-chair and walks out the door.

 

\--

 

The phone is silent. The calls don’t go to voice mail or get logged by the ever helpful Mrs Hudson; they just melt away like they never existed in the first place.

 

John Watson doesn’t live here anymore.

 

_March 17, 2012_


End file.
